He Closed His Eyes
by Scarlet Letters
Summary: After an attack that leaves him shaken Kurt makes his way to Glee Club hoping someone there will know how to help him. WARNING: Character Death. Oneshot. Complete.


**Warning: Slightly graphic mentions of Rape and Character Death. Read with Caution.**

**Disclaimer: I would if I could, but I don't so I won't.**

* * *

It was Monday when it happened. God, Kurt hated Mondays. He was walking toward Glee Club when a hand grabbed his arm and dragged him into an empty classroom. Kurt found himself staring into a face he didn't recognize. But he recognized the expression and braced himself for pain.

It exploded into the side of his face and spread as the blows continued to come. He fell onto the ground. A body followed him down and held him there, straddling his legs. As Kurt waited for more of blows to fall there was only silence. He opened his eyes and looked into the leering face above him. Then Kurt became scared.

Up until now he wasn't very frightened, being knocked around a little was normal, and he could take it. But then the hand reached for his shirt, pushing it up to reveal a pale chest Kurt started to panic. Then it reached for the button of his jeans, and Kurt opened his mouth to scream. The hand abandoned his jeans to hold his neck tightly, choking any noise Kurt might have made out of his throat in a garbled moan.

Kurt closed his eyes.

He didn't exactly know what happened next. His jeans were pulled down and he felt something grab his penis, squeezing painfully. Then his penis was released, but there was a sudden sharp pain in his lower half, and a burning, and the sense of being too full. It felt like he was being split open. The second hand moved to rest on his chest, pushing down painfully, and he felt ribs crack.

As the boy moved over him, abusing Kurt's body, he sobbed quietly. And when he was released and left there bleeding he didn't move for long minutes. Finally he lifted himself up off the floor. He set himself to rights on autopilot, fixing his clothes into a semblance of normal as his mind raced.

_God, what had just happened? What do I do? _His mind struggled to process what had happened, and at the edge of his conscious he registered some bleeding and trouble breathing. _Glee. My friends. They'll know what to do._

He managed to walk to the choir room and he stood in the door. No one looked at him. They didn't even notice him. They didn't even glance up at him, as if he had never been gone, he looked at the clock. He was thirty minutes late. He stared at his friends for a moment, thoughts running rampant in his head.

_It wasn't that he didn't understand that they all had problems. It was just that he wanted them to notice what was right in front of them. Sure, Finn and Rachel were having issues, but Rachel's desire to convert Finn to Judaism was not something everyone needed to know. Yeah, he understood Quinn had given up the baby, but it was her choice. Artie had just received the crushing news he probably wouldn't get out of his wheel chair, ever. Yeah, he got they all had issues, but so did he. Oh god, had he really just been raped? He couldn't be the strong one. Didn't he deserve someone to care about his problems, the bruises on his face, the fact that he was barely walking, much less walking straight. What about the fact that the life had gone out of his eyes? Didn't one of them care? When had his friends stopped noticing? When had it become so common for him to enter injured that they didn't notice when he walked in after being raped?_

He closed his eyes and gathered his courage, and his strength, before slowly making his way to his chair. He was proud of himself when he managed to sit down without a wince of pain. _Mind over matter, mind over matter, that's all this amounts to. _Maybe he could make it through the rehearsal, god he hoped he could make it through.

It seemed like his wishes would be answered as Rachel began a long rant about how winning Nationals was especially important this year because they needed to build up their reputation, and if they lost to Vocal Adrenaline they were pathetic because Jesse St. James was gone and they needed to up their rehearsal schedule. There might have been more, but Kurt stopped listening.

He shifted in his chair and winced, _God, it was only getting worse. I didn't think the pain could get worse._ He closed his eyes and tried to block it out, but it was getting harder. He opened his eyes again. He opened his eyes again. He opened his eyes again, _I'm almost positive you are able to see when you open your eyes, _Kurt thought but all that he could see was blackness, a gaping blackness. He opened his eyes again, and the room flew into focus finally.

Rachel was standing in front of him.

"I don't think you are taking this seriously Kurt, I am explaining how we are going to win and you are trying to go to sleep. I thought you were as serious about winning as the rest of us."

Kurt blinked and looked at the rest of the Glee club, all of whom were staring back at him with looks of disapproval on their faces, although Brittany's might have just been confusion. He looked back at Rachel, _What do I say? Come on, come on, THINK!_ He would have given anything for the words "I can't keep my eyes open because I am in too much pain. I was raped," to come out of his mouth, but something completely different immerged.

"There's a sale at the mall, I was hoping if I fell asleep the time would go faster because God knows listening to your voice makes time drag by at an unbelievably slow rate."

Rachel gaped at Kurt before snapping her mouth shut and glaring at him in outrage. _Did that just come out of my mouth? _

"Well if New Directions winning is so unimportant to you feel free to leave."

Kurt shook his head and settled deeper into his seat. _God, please let this go by faster.

* * *

_After a luckily dance free rehearsal Mercedes pulled Kurt away from the rest of the group, "Listen, I don't know what's up with you, but Mr. Shue said I could have a big solo at Regionals, and you are not going to mess this up for me, alright home boy?"

Kurt nodded without making eye contact and Mercedes walked away to talk shop with Quinn. _I just have to make it home. Then I can curl up and cry. Just have to make it home._

It was this mantra that kept Kurt going as he walked to his car and drove home. Before he even got out of his Navigator tears were streaming silently down his cheeks. _Thank God Dad isn't home¸ I don't think I could make up another story._

He made it into the house and down the basement steps to his room. The work on the addition for Finn had been finished the summer after he and Carol moved in, and Kurt couldn't be more grateful for the privacy of his room.

He reached into his dresser and pulled out a pair of sweats two sizes too big for him and a plain white cotton t-shirt. As he shrugged out of his shirt and pants, which were causing him some trouble due to the fact his legs were more than a little shaky, he made sure not to look at the mirror. Kurt didn't want to see any of the hand-shaped bruises that marred his porcelain skin. After he finally got out of his pants and dropped them unceremoniously on the floor he reached for his sweats. There was blood on his hands. _Thank God I was wearing black pants today, _he thought as he stared at the blood, at the bright red blood. He quickly finished getting dressed and moved to his bed, pulling the quilt his mom made before she died out of the bin it was folded up in and he wrapped himself up tight; closing his eyes to try to make the pain go away. He closed his eyes to make the memories go away, to try to feel clean again, new again, untouched. In the end he just closed his eyes.

* * *

Burt opened the door to the house and yelled for Kurt. There was no answer, but Burt knew he was here somewhere, his Navigator was out front. After a cursory glance in the living room and kitchen revealed no Kurt Burt glanced towards the stairs into the basement. The door was closed.

"Finn? Is Kurt in his room?" Burt yelled up at Finn's room where he could hear artificial gunfire from a video game.

"He was when I got home and I haven't seen him since!" Finn yelled back.

Burt made his way to the basement steps and the closed door that waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. Kurt always closed the door. There was an unspoken rule that you knocked before you entered Kurt's room, and that was exactly what Burt did.

There was no answer. Burt knocked again…and again. On the fifth knock when Kurt didn't answer Burt yelled into the room, "Kurt, if you don't answer me I'm coming in, closed door or not."

There was no answer.

Burt forced the door open, a little surprised to find it locked, but the lock was a flimsy one, and Burt stepped into the room. His gaze swept across the room, resting for a few moments on the discarded clothing still lying on the floor before finally arriving on the huddle of blankets on Kurt's bed that was his son. It broke his heart a little to see the quilt his wife had made for their son wrapped around Kurt's shoulders. He stepped towards the bed and his son.

"Bad day?" He asked as he settled down on the bed next to Kurt. There was no answer. "Kurt?" Burt asked as he reached through the quilt to brush the hair off Kurt's forehead, Kurt's surprisingly _cold _forehead. "Kurt?" He asked a little louder as he moved the quilt away from his son's body.

That was when he felt it, the sticky thickness, and smelt it, the coppery, rusty tang. Blood. "_KURT?" _Burt yelled as he shook Kurt, coldness was radiating through Kurt's body and into his hands. _Was he breathing?_

"FINN! Call 911!" Burt yelled as he checked for a pulse. There was none.

"What's wrong?" Finn yelled back as Burt heard him fumble around in his room for a phone.

"Kurt's not breathing!"

When the ambulance arrived the EMTs quickly moved down the stairs and into Kurt's room.

"He's not breathing," Burt explained as he was pushed out of their way. "He's not breathing…not breathing…He isn't dead is he? I couldn't find a pulse and he's not breathing…Not breathing…He can't be dead…"

"No pulse, start CPR."

"Christ, can you feel how cold this kid is?"

"Someone grab the defibulator!"

Burt could only stand there as the EMTs did their job.

"Clear!" Kurt's body convulsed.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

Burt didn't look at the EMTs when he stopped hearing them call "Clear."

"I'm sorry sir, he's dead, he probably has been for a while. There was nothing we or you could do." Burt closed his eyes and tried to hold back a sob, he wasn't successful.

It wasn't until they lifted Kurt's body onto the gurney and into a black bag that they even noticed the blood pooling under Kurt's sweats. The EMTs looked at each other for a moment before one of them moved to cut the shirt and sweats off Kurt. Burt couldn't stop the tears when he saw the revealed body of his son.

Kurt's torso was covered in bruises that looked suspiciously like handprints, and his boxers were soaked through with blood.

"Looks like rape," one of the EMTs muttered, "A doctor will know more when they examine him at the hospital." And as they left with the body of his son in a black bag Burt broke down in tears for the first time since his wife had died.

* * *

It wouldn't be until two days later that the rest of the Glee Club would find out about Kurt's death. Finn was in too much shock to go to school the day after Kurt died, and he didn't even call or text anyone to let them know what was going on. The doctors had confirmed that Kurt had been raped and suddenly the police were involved. All he could do was huddle on the couch while his mom and Burt rushed in and out of the house and the police swept the basement for any information on who could have done this to Kurt.

When he finally went back to school looking far paler than usual his friends hurried up to him.

"Finn where have you been?"

"Are you okay?"

"Dude! You disappeared off of the face of the planet!"

"I tried to call you!"

"Coach is not happy that you skipped football practice."

"You wasted valuable time we could have spent rehearsing for Regionals by not showing up to Glee rehearsal. This is unacceptable if you are to remain the male lead."

The last voice was Rachel, and Finn couldn't make eye contact with any of his friends as they surrounded him. He couldn't help but notice that not a single one of them asked where Kurt was. _Kurt. _His throat clenched at the thought of his stepbrother. _Oh God, _Finn thought as he closed his eyes.

Tina was the first to notice, "Finn, is something wrong? Are you okay?"

Finn could feel tears slipping free from behind his closed eyelids and his friends fell silent as they slowly traced lines down his cheeks. They finally took in his pale state.

Finn looked terrible. He hadn't showered in two days and all normal life had stopped at the Hummel-Hudson household. Finn couldn't even remember the last time he had eaten. His cheeks were sunken in and his closed eyes stood out in his face.

"What's wrong?" Tina asked again.

Finn opened his eyes and looked at his friends, _Kurt's friends, _and his heart broke all over again. _I don't think I can do this, _he thought desperately, _I should have just stayed home. But they had to find out somehow, and soon, _Finn reasoned with himself, _Burt is calling Principal Figgins to tell him about Kurt today…There's going to be an announcement._ No, he couldn't let them find out about Kurt like that so he opened his mouth but the words wouldn't come out. He closed it and swallowed before trying again. This time his voice came out as a whisper.

"Kurt's dead."

Everyone was silent as the words sunk in, their quiet significance ringing in the air, then pandemonium broke loose.

"What-"

"Boy this better be your idea of a joke-"

"How is this even possible-"

There were so many outbursts from the group, and then Brittany's voice broke through.

"Is that why he was walking funny and had bruises on Monday?"

Everyone fell silent and turned to look at her.

"What are you talking about?" Rachel finally asked, the others watched Brittany closely. She stared back, a confused look on her face.

"He was walking funny. Like he was going to topple over any second. Kinda how we walk after Cheerios. And he had a big bruise on his cheek and another on his neck…"

"Why didn't you say anything?" Santana asked before anyone else could, her voice calm so she didn't scare Brittany.

"No one else did, I thought we were all playing a game, or mad at him¸ especially when Rachel started yelling at him…Did I do something wrong?"

No one had the heart to tell her yes, or anything else that sounded remotely cruel. After all, she had noticed. And that was running through all of their heads. _Why didn't _I_ notice?

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**So what did you think? Please R&R**

**~Scarlet Letters**


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